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The first day of Blah-bruary … er, I mean, February. The perfect day to revel in garden pictures that are exactly the opposite of what's outside my grey-skied, western New York window:

Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (Amber) behind a hedge of boxwood along a walkway at the Noack Rosen rose gardens in Germany. Behind them is Flower Carpet Appleblossom and Flower Carpet Pink trained into a topiary tree.

These are the rose gardens on the grounds of Noack Rosen, the German rose breeder that inspired an easy-care rose revolution with the introduction of his "no-prune, no-spray, no kidding" Flower Carpet roses.

Flower Carpet roses (Pink) with a backdrop of lavender

As you can see from the picture, Nature gave roses heavenly scents and good bones to start with, and depending on how much they were trained (and how much time you put into them), they could be grown as climbers, topiaries, espaliers and even low spreaders. But fast-fleeting blooms and needy natures made these beguiling beauties a lot of work for little payoff.

(In front): Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (Pink Supreme) and original Flower Carpet roses (Red), (White) and (Pink, as a topiary or standard)

In 1995, however, Tesselaar Plants' U.S. introduction of Werner Noack's Flower Carpet "groundcover" roses changed all that. This revolutionary "carpet rose" shrugged off old stereotypes by giving gardeners a disease-resistant, easy-care rose that delivered big color in spectacular flushes all season long. It was as easy to grow as a flowering shrub, with none of the hassles previously associated with roses, like meticulous pruning, spraying to treat diseases and deadheading blooms.

Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (Pink Supreme) and the original Flower Carpet roses (Red) growing through (and thus, softening) a fence

Rose aficionados called it "The Wonder Rose" or "the rose in the pink pot" (Tesselaar Plants cofounder and president Anthony Tesselaar came up with the then-pioneering idea not only of branding the plant as part of a series but also of selling them in a rose-colored pot).

Soft mounds of Flower Carpet roses (Coral) softening a walkway

The Flower Carpet line of roses now features nine colors and a new Next Generation line (the product of Werner Noack's son, Reinhard Noack (below)) with 15 years of additional breeding for even better heat and cold resistance. Five of the nine colors have won the world's highest honor for natural rose disease-resistance, Germany’s All-Deutschland Rose designation.

Reinhard Noack with Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (Scarlet)

But most of all, as you can see from the pics, they're just stunningly beautiful. Their big blocks of color are just the right fix for these winter-weary eyes.

What are your favorite rose gardens to visit? Drop me a line and tell me all about it! You can also send pics via email at: lhutchursongmail [dot] com.

It sounds weird, but one of my favorite times of the year, gardening-wise, is January.

That's when I look forward to seeing all the new mailorder gardening catalogs in my mailbox. It's also when I make my "Plants I Want" wish list. And it's also the time when I repot indoor plants and mark the coming year's master calendar with seasonal gardening chores.

I know, it sounds anal. Perhaps I'm overcompensating for my ADD, which has turned me into somewhat of a calendar junkie:  If it's not on the calendar, it just doesn't get done.

Anyway, one of the chores I'm putting on there now is pruning. Without it, my front and side yards quickly become overgrown in summer and crowd out all the light, air and space. I at least need to go and trim all the dangling and dead branches left in the wake of all the winter wind storms we have in our area.

Pruned Flower Carpet roses with tete-a-tete daffodils in early spring

Late winter is a great time to prune deciduous trees and shrubs, although in cold climates like my Zone 6ish garden. Here in western New York, I usually prune on or around St. Patrick's Day. It's an easy way to remember it, anyway.

When you do prune deciduous trees and shrubs, make sure to remove diseased, damaged or close-crossing branches, but take special care not to spoil the plant's natural shape.

For magnolias, forsythias and other spring-flowering woody plants, delay pruning until just after flowering. Summer-blooming shrubs such as hydrangea and hibiscus are best pruned in winter or early spring, just before growth gets going. 

March and April are big months for pruning roses. My Flower Carpet roses are the easiest to prune: I just take a sharp pair of hedge sheers and reduce their volume by about two thirds. A more conservative approach is needed for traditional bush roses: Aim for an open vase shape, making cuts about a half-inch above an outward-facing bud. Old-fashioned roses that flower once in early summer shouldn't be pruned until just after flowering.

For more information on pruning Flower Carpet roses, check out the video "How to take care of Flower Carpet roses in spring" by Dave Epstein of Growing Wisdom.

Whenever you prune, always use clean, sharp pruning tools. Mangled, unclean cuts can lead to disease. And don't put diseased material in the compost bin. If Jack Frost strikes, avoid removing any frost-damaged growth, as this helps protect the plant from further frost damage.

I know it's hard to wait till spring, but try to enjoy some garden dreaming and planning. And don't forget to put pruning on your calendar!

Looks like kids gardening is going to be bigger than ever in 2012, by the looks of all the yowza grow kits marketed to them on the shelves.

Seems the gardening industry has caught wind of the fact that those Gen X and Y consumers they've been trying to reach have kids, and that a good chunk of any disposable income Mommy and Daddy have for gardening is probably going to go toward something they can do with their children. Same goes for the Baby Boomers and their grandkids.

And I don't think it'll just stop at grow kits. After all, Netherlands-based flower auction company FloraHolland just announced the release of its Hello Kitty line of plants, aimed at girls and young women. Now that's marketing MEOW!

Hello Kitty plants

Obviously, the industry also knows that kids will go for anything with a character on it – from breakfast cereal to bandages to toothbrushes and toilet seats.  Hence the Growums garden kits (tagline: "Add a little character to your garden!") retailing for $39.98 at my neighborhood Home Depot. The 50-plus characters - with names like Adam Apple, Duke the Cuke and Elvis Parsley are part of six themed edible gardening kits (pizza, taco, herb, salad, ratatouille and stirfy).

Growums ($39.98 at Home Depot)

And of course, there's an online component at Growums.com, where you can learn about the characters and their gardens, play games, use Growums for fundraisers, follow Growums on Twitter and Facebook and even "track your Growems" (I don't know what this means, since I didn't buy one and you have to enter the UPC code from the kit to find out). I think it's smart marketing - and as the mom of a 4-year-old, I'll know to steer clear of it in Home Depot if she's with me and I don't want to spend the extra cash. Kudos to Bonnie Plants for really thinkin' this one through!

$39.98 a little much for ya? How 'bout the $2.99 "Eco Plant Pals" (also available at Amazon.com). I found as part of a mondo kids' grow kit display in my Wegmans supermarket. These kits, too, feature their own cartoon characters, like Strawberry Sarah, Aloe Alin and Basil Bob:

Eco Plant Pals ($2.99 at Wegmans)

Princess Garden ($14.99 at Wegmans)

Carnivorous Creations ($24.99 at Wegmans)

Looks like "fairy gardening"– that gardening trend in which tiny plants are grown as part of a miniature scene fit for a fairy - has really taken off. I know I saw a lot of fairy gardening stuff on display, at least, at the 2011 Garden Writers Association symposium this past summer in Indianapolis: 

Fairy Triad grow kit ($24.99 at Wegmans)

But the most exciting thing for me personally, as an incurable plant nerd, were all the kits offering the opportunity to grow exotic edibles (well, exotic in my western NY Zone 6ish garden, that is).  baThere were kits for bananas, peanuts, coffee and even pomegranate trees. And as the kid who always wanted to sprout an avocado pit on the windowsill to make my own tree, I'm willing to slap down the $4 or $10 to see if it actually works.

. P

Pomegranate grow kit ($4 at Wegmans)

A couple posts back, I talked about hot garden trends for 2012. One of them was the movement toward Mediterranean garden style.

The style, as explained by North Coast Gardening blogger Genevieve Schmidt, often features open and airy courtyards, light-colored, textured hardscaping such as mosaic walls, gravel beds or unglazed terra cotta pots. The style also is known for its low-growing, drought-tolerant plants, hedges, topiary trees and vines (i.e. olive, bay and lemon trees, succulents, lavender, palms, roses and grasses).

Well, there were a bunch of Mediterranean garden images I couldn't fit in that last post, so here they are:

Photo courtesy Genevieve Schmidt

Photo courtesy Genevieve Schmidt, designed by Lynda Pozel 

Euphorbia and purple salvia; designed by Lynda Pozel. Photo courtesy Genevieve Schmidt

Little bluestem grass (left), phormium (New Zealand flax, right). Photo courtesy Genevieve Schmidt

Festival Burgundy cordyline (spiky and dark red, in middle) with topiary tree, lemon tree and unglazed terra cotta pots featuring silver and white plants.

Snow Storm agapanthus (lily of the Nile) with unglazed terra cotta pot

Banks of Snow Storm agapanthus (lily of the Nile) and Flower Carpet roses (right).

How have you incorporated Mediterranean garden style into your landscape? Post a comment and tell me all about it. And you can email photos to lisa [dot] hutchursonbrandcool [dot] com.

So we were having our annual Cousins Christmas party yesterday - this year at the beautiful Rochester Civic Garden Center here in Rochester, NY. There, taking a break from the Cha-Cha Slide and Holiday Calorie Trough there in Warner Castle, built in 1854 to resemble a Scottish ancestral castle, I found myself wandering around and appreciating all the housplants adorning each room. And then I remembered: even though it's winter, we CAN still garden. Health and quality of life are huge right now — at least according to Trendwatching.

Inspired, I started remembering how much I love houseplants. Maybe it's the cold climate of Rochester, which I just found out is No. 2 in annual snowfall (right behind Syracuse, NY where I went to school!) Remember: houseplants not only purify and filter the air, removing allergens and impurities - they also pump out tons of mood-boosting oxygen!

So if you're not already into houseplants, pick up a few! You'd  be surprised how much a little green goes a long way indoors!

Here are a few from Warner Castle:

From left: beans growing up a trellis, rosemary and croton

A collection of succulents

Polkadot plant in a terrarium

And here are some great houseplants that have survived low-light consitions in my house:

Festival Burgundy cordyline (I just bring it in from the patio at the end of summer)

Bamboo palm

What houseplants are you crazy about? Post a comment, and tell me all about it!

Sometimes life calls for a little attitude. And you’ll definitely find it in “Tangerine Tango” – Pantone’s 2012 Color of the Year. This “spirited reddish-orange,” just dubbed the new “it” hue by global color authority Pantone, is sure to burn up any of the fog left over from a gloomy economy and – as Pantone says – “provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.”

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

So where can we find this color for our gardens? And how do we use it in the landscape to its fullest? Here are just a few ideas:

Tangerine Tango - Pantone's 2012 Color of the Year

“The reddish-orange blooms of this dark-foliaged canna certainly match Pantone’s “Tangerine Tango,” says Anthony Tesselaar, cofounder and president of Tesselaar Plants, developer of the colorfully foliaged Tropicanna cannas. “What’s more, the backdrop of black, broad leaves makes this color pop even more.”

Tropicanna Black canna bloom

Tesselaar suggests using this color in containers with subtle echoes of the same color: “Not too much with this fiery hue,” he says. “A little goes a long way.”

For example, Tesselaar suggests a hot-hued “thriller-filler-spiller combo,” with Tropicanna Black as the thriller, ornamental peppers as the filler and thread-leaved croton as the spiller:

On her North Coast Gardening blog, California garden designer Genevieve Schmidt suggests a more analogous color grouping: Tropicanna Black  (above) with other outrageous reds like Helianthemum (sunrose) ‘Henfield Brilliant’ and Clianthus puniceus ‘Red’:

Helianthemum 'Henfield Brilliant'

Clianthus punicea 'Red'

Another good plant featuring this fiery orange-red color is Bonfire begonias:

Just one will wake up a whole garden bed:

The orange in this red also makes it pop against a bright blue pot (since orange and blue are opposites on the color wheel):

So, what other plants bring this Pantone color  into the garden? Post a comment and let me know! I'd love to hear about some other color combos starring Tangerine Tango!

In my previous post on Top Garden Trends for 2012, I mentioned how larger ponds are giving way to smaller water features (like this recirculating fountain featuring a hollowed-out boulder, designed by Sharon Coates and Bruce Zaretsky of Zaretsky and Associates design-build firm in Rochester, NY):

Sharon and Bruce also sent me other great images of the latest water features too - as did California garden designer and North Coast Gardening blogger Genevieve Schmidt. I fell so in love with all of them that I decided they needed a post of their own:

Water fountain globe (submitted by Genevieve Schmidt)

Scupper (designed by Zaretsky and Associates)

Rain chain with boulder base (designed by Zaretsky and Associates)

OK, Santa. Maybe I let the weeds go a little - no, A LOT - more than they were supposed to this year. And I still haven't gotten around to putting those Tropicanna canna rhizomes (still sitting in the basement) into peat-moss filled plastic bags for the winter. And yes, I could've - and should've - planted a lot more veggies this year.

But I've been nice, too … I shared my hostas and new plants from the Garden Writers Association symposium with budget-strapped gardening friends. I harvested all that bittersweet and grapevine for my godmother, who teaches floral design. And I spent all that time with my daughter, letting her pick out her own seeds and grow her own kids' garden this year.

So cut me a break, will ya - I could really use some of these gardening goodies under the tree!

Air plant ornament

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 70s, but I really loved this hanging terrarium ornament featured in the November Garden Cuttings newsletter’s home-and-holiday-gift suggestions: “The Glass Globe Tillandsia Terrarium is an attractive living arrangement for a kitchen, covered porch, or anywhere there is indirect light,” it reads, adding that of course, it’s also great as an ornament on any plant-lover’s Christmas tree. Inside the glass globe are are three tillandsia plants: a red Capitata Select, a feathery green Tillandsia Ionantha and a silver-gray Harrisii. The 6-inch glass globe has a 2-inch front opening to remove the plants for watering. Just soak the easy-to-care-for plants in water once a week. Includes a monofilament cord for hanging. $39.95 from Logee’s, (888) 330-8038 or www.logees.com.

Hens & chicks growing kit

Dying to make your owned framed wall art of succulents? I know I am. Now you can grow them – and enjoy them – inside during the colder months, with this Hens & chicks growing kit from Red Envelope. This succulent, more formally known as sempervivum, comes in “understated, but slightly cheeky” white, ceramic planters. “They’re both versatile decorating elements and a perfect way to pay tribute to the family’s “Mother Hen,” reads the catalog. The “chick” size ($29.95) is 5 3/8 x 4 1/8 inches. The “hen” ($39.95) is 7 7/8 x 3 ½ inches. (877) 850-7467 or RedEnvelope.com/Catalog

Fiskars Pruning Stik

“Lightweight pruning stick for getting small branches and vines,” California garden designer and blogger recently wrote on North Coast Gardening. “I use it to prune out of control Cecile Brunner roses and at apple-pruning time.” Well, that’s just what I need for my Japanese wisteria out front (which has been trained – not very well, mind you – into a tree). Every year, my husband battles what he has now named the “Japanese Bumble Tree,” pruning off its long, new growth every week, it seems, just to have it seemingly grow back overnight. See the Fiskars Pruning Stik in action in Gen’s video review (dog included! No, no, not with the product – just for the entertainment of crazy dog people like me). $39.97 at Amazon.com.

Grow your own marinara kit

OK, so I first stopped and looked at this because I thought it said “Grow your own marijuana kit,” which I thought was definitely pushing the envelope, even for the Uncommon Goods catalog (home of the Gro-Bot and Attitude Vase.) But then I realized it was a marinara growing kit – and was still very interested! See I live and grew up in Rochester, NY, which has a huge Italian-American population. So making your own sauce out of fresh ingredients from the garden is a way of life here. And I always set out to do just this with my now-4-year-old daughter. Except in my busyness, I always forget to get the seeds for one of the key ingredients (oregano, basil and tomatoes). And of course, you can go as cheap as you want with this idea – I’m just a sucker for pretty, coordinated products, especially when I give them as gifts.  And this one, especially with its patio-perfect, kid-friendly cherry tomatoes, is just as cute as a button!  The Grow your own marinara kit is $29 through Uncommon Goods. (888) 365-0056 or www.uncommongoods.com

Norpro 1 Gallon Stainless Steel Composter

I keep saying I’m going to start composting, but you know how that goes … Plus, a lot of the composting bins I’ve seen look a lot like the big, green garbage tote I push out to the curb every Tuesday. I’d like something that I can drop table scraps into, but it looks like a piece of the décor. With its charcoal filter and super-tight lid, I also won’t have to worry about bad odors filling up my kitchen, and I won’t have to bring it into the back yard and empty it every single time I drop something in there. And sure, I’d love to get one of those super-dee-duper, commercial-grade kitchen composters I’ve seen for $350. But for now, this bin’s price of $37.59 is a lot more realistic. Find it at Amazon.com.

Forget all those doomsday predictions about 2012. From the garden world’s perspective, life will continue to be good – with gardeners saving themselves water, hassles and misspent money. At least that’s according to several savvy garden experts and a leading garden trends survey.

Water-wise plants, products

(pictured here: Flower Carpet roses (center) and Festival Burgundy cordyline (either side)

Most on the minds of landscaping professionals right now are issues surrounding gardening and water, "whether it's the use of water or the cleaning of water," says Sharon Coates, co-owner of Zaretsky and Associates, a landscape design-and-build firm in Rochester, N.Y.

In light of recent droughts in places like Georgia, Texas and the Carolinas, people are trying to use the water they dohave more frugally, Coates explains. “People are making sure they’re watering responsibly, choosing plants that aren’t water hogs and putting rain sensors on their irrigation systems. They’re also making sure the irrigation is monitored so it’s not watering the driveway and sidewalk.”

Water-wise plants will also make the Mediterranean garden style (above) hot in 2012, says Genevieve Schmidt, a northern coastal California landscape designer and author of the North Coast Gardening blog. Mediterranean landscape design, she explains, often features open and airy courtyards, light-colored, textured hardscaping such as mosaic walls, gravel beds or unglazed terra cotta pots and low-growing, drought-tolerant plants, hedges, topiary trees and vines (i.e. olive, bay and lemon trees, succulents, lavender, palms, roses and grasses). “Of course, the vivid colors also help make this a winning style.”

Also, when it comes to cleaning the water, especially storm water carrying pollutants like fertilizers and motor oil into local waterways, many people are turning to rain gardens. “These shallow depressions are filled with deep-rooted plants and grasses­ — all of them noninvasive, native or locally adapted — that can handle being inundated with water and also don’t mind being dry,” Zaretsky and Associates’ Coates says.

“Many gardeners are catching their own rainwater in rain barrels and cleaning or recycling grey water (wastewater from domestic activities like laundry, dishwashing and bathing)” adds Anthony Tesselaar, cofounder and president of Tesselaar Plants. “In fact, in many municipalities now, saving water is not only ‘in’, but mandatory”.

Black and amber

Black and amber shades in plants continue to be a “hot” color trend, says North Coast Gardening’s Schmidt. “People have already been bewitched by the dark drama of black plants,” she explains, “and as they learn to design with them more effectively, they’ll only become more popular.”

Notable examples of popular dark plants include Petunia 'Black Velvet', Ipomoea (sweet potato vine) 'Blackie', Tropicanna Black cannas, Aeonium 'Zwartkop', black mondo grass, Colombine 'Black Barlow', Heuchera 'Black Beauty' and Hellebore 'Winter Dream.'

Amber shades, she adds, are also extremely popular – “amber heucheras, the amber Flower Carpet roses, and other plants with amber tones are going to be big in nurseries this year.”

Low-risk, high-value plants

(pictured here: mildew-resistant Volcano phlox)

Just as consumers are being more careful with their water usage, they’re also shopping smarter. In particular, they’re looking for low-risk, high-value plants that not only look good in the garden center, but have a tried-and-true reputation.

“Plants bred to withstand attacks from pests and diseases that are also tolerant of climate and soil extremes provide a better value,” says Tesselaar (developer of the low-maintenance, disease- and drought-resistant Flower Carpet^® roses, Festival^™ Burgundy cordyline, Storm^™ agapanthus and Volcano^®phlox). “Gardeners are more aware than ever that choosing the right plant for the right situation is imperative if you want to help save the planet — let alone your bank balance.”

For as little as $15 to $25, for instance, you can have long-term color without a lot of expense by using continuously flowering shrubs like Flower Carpet roses, hydrangeas, potentilla (shrubby cinquefoil) and spirea. Or, if your garden already has plenty of beautiful structure, use such colorful, flowering machines to dress up these ‘good bones.’”

Smaller water features

More and more people are moving away from large ponds and toward smaller water features, says Coates: “Now people prefer a cut piece of stone, a boulder or a beautiful glazed urn with water bubbling out of the top.”

Coates thinks it’s a maintenance issue: “People either have to be really into ponds and all the maintenance they take, or they have to hire someone to do it for them.”

What’s more, says Schmidt, fountains made with natural stone or metal are hotter sellers than features made of manmade materials. “The ball-shaped fountains made of stone are very big this year,” she says, “and I think that copper and other metals are coming into fashion as accents in fountains and as materials for planting containers.”

Seasonal interest

In colder areas, where the blooms are gone and deciduous leaves have fallen, Coates is seeing more people keep their ornamental grasses instead of cutting them back, so they can provide winter interest. For the same reason, they’re looking for plants with winter berries, evergreens, barks of different colors and textures or deciduous trees and shrubs with dramatic forms. But they’re also adding plants that change with the seasons, offering new interest with each.

“Customers have grown tired of the stark, all-season gardens that were so fashionable a decade ago,” Tesselaar says. “Every garden needs its backbone of plants that look great year round, but that doesn’t have to be at the expense of seasonal interest and color.”

More front yard gardens

The number of front yard gardens is also on a steady rise (29 percent in 2011, compared to 27 percent in 2010 and 25 percent in 2009), according to the Garden Trends Research Report’s Early Spring 2011 survey (conducted for the Garden Writers Association Foundation). Meanwhile, the number of backyard gardens has taken a 3-percent hit, down from 50 percent in 2009 and 2010.

Gardening “up”

Vertical gardening is also on the rise, as documented in the new, popular book Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spacesby California garden designers Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet. The practice of growing plants up from the ground instead of out, or of planting them off the ground to start with—on trellises, arbors, balconies and walls—has become especially popular among those with small spaces, landscape eyesores or an awkward “skinny spot” in their garden.

But Coates also notes the growth of a different kind of “gardening up” – green roofs.

“Green roofs have definitely seen more of a commercial application and have been done in mostly urban areas, but they’re still a huge trend,” she says. “Green roofs help save on heating and cooling costs and actually protect the roof underneath from the degrading effects of the elements, so cities have received tax incentives for green roof installations.” Some cities, like Toronto and Chicago, are even starting to require green roofs on some new buildings, based on the square footage.

Winter 2011-2012 is well on its way, with areas of the Northeast already socked with snow. Whether you have snow on the ground or not, however, late fall to early winter is the time to get garden plants like these ready for the cold:

Flower Carpet^®roses

Transplanting. If you live in a warm climate (Zones 7 and higher), you can transplant your carpet roses any time (with the exception of excessively hot and dry locales, in which you shouldn’t transplant from July through September). If you live in a colder climate (Zones 6 and lower), the end of October was the latest you should have been transplanting carpet roses. Just hold off on transplanting until early next spring, when the plant’s still dormant but the soil is workable and warmer days are coming. (Doing this chore on St. Patrick’s Day is a good way of remembering when to do it in the North!)

Pruning. For those living in steadily warm, but not desert-like, areas, late fall to early winter is the ideal time for pruning That’s when flowering is at its lowest and leaves look their rattiest. Trim the plant back by at least half and as small as a basketball immediately before transplanting (pruning stimulates active growth). Water and wait about two to three weeks to feed. In colder climates, if you didn’t get to it before late October, hold off till St. Patrick’s Day (see above). 

Overwintering containers. In warm climates, you can just keep carpet roses in their pot, provided the container is at least 20 inches in diameter. Then just trim the roses back at the appropriate time (see above).

In cold climates, you can just wait for them to start going dormant (around Thanksgiving). Then, pack them closely together into a cool, dry (but not freezing) place like your garage or basement and get them up off the ground (they should be in pots at least 20 inches across and 20 inches deep and provide drainage). Some people like to cover them with hay or burlap for extra protection. Those without a garage can mound them up over the top with hay. Don’t cut back or prune them at this time.

Tropicanna^® cannas

Overwintering. In Zones 7 and higher, wait for leaves to start dying back, then cut back foliage to the soil. In Zones 3 and lower, wait until frost starts killing leaves, turning them  brown or black. Cut the stalks back to about 6 inches, then dig up the rhizomes, being careful not to injure them. Brush off loose soil and let rhizomes dry. Nestle rhizomes into closed boxes or plastic bags full of peat moss (with holes punched in them for air circulation). Store rhizomes in a cool, dry place (not freezing). Cannas grown in containers can be stored in their pots, too.

Festival™ Burgundy cordyline

Overwintering. In Zones 8b and higher, just leave Festival Burgundy cordyline in its pot or in the ground for the winter.In colder areas, it can be brought inside and overwintered as a houseplant. Put it in a window with good light (south-facing exposures are usually the best). For more on overwintering Festival Burgundy cordyline, see this video by Dave Epstein of GrowingWisdom.com.

Volcano^® phlox

Overwintering. Cut back to 4 or 5 inches and remove all dead leaves. Mulch to remove any lingering powdery mildew (Volcano phlox are mildew tolerant, which means they may get mildew, but they won’t die and it generally doesn’t affect the blooms). In areas with hard freezes, protect with mulch, pine straw or leaves to protect from ground heaves. In spring and again in summer, feed with time-release fertilizer.